Three Ways To Identify A Connection Culture

Merging two strangers together for a long drive across country may seem daunting—especially if you’re one of the two. Now, take that uneasiness and apply it to the organizational level where you have two companies with thousands of employees about to merge, and the overwhelm can be to much to ingest.

The values, beliefs and behaviors that garnered success for company ABC are different than those that bred victory for company XYZ, and the mergence of the two never equals the sum of them both.

Mike Stallard: It started when I saw mergers not working post-merger, and the conflicting cultures sabotaging their abilities to execute the (initial) plan.

Boss: What has your researched revealed regarding company culture?

Stallard: When you have two merging cultures where one comes from a command and control environment and the other is accustomed to greater autonomy and explaining the why behind strategy, the one who is used to having an explanation won't execute with passion because they’re expected to be explained the strategy, and when they’re not, civil war ensues within the firm.

People will mentally check out and then (physically) walk out the door when values change (link). We found that values always affect post-merger performance, yet a lot of CEOs don’t appreciate how important values and culture are. A couple things for them to consider are: Are people used to having a voice in decisions, or, are people just expected to execute? If they typical employee profile is the former, then they likely won’t react well if the new CEO leads according to the latter.

Interestingly, two to three out of 10 employees give their best efforts and are energized. The others lack the relational support and operate at a sub-par level because the environment affects them.

Think about it. If you’re unhappy with your environment then the stress of dealing with discomfort is always there. As a result, the body is preparing itself for a threat, thus compromising performance.

Boss: What convinces CEOs to believe that culture is important?

Stallard: Experience. It’s difficult to intellectually persuade somebody about the value of culture; either they get it or they don’t. We look for leaders who have two attributes:

They care about people

They care about results

If you possess these two characteristics then you can produce the culture you want.

Boss: What different types of cultures are there?

Stallard: Our research revealed three types of cultures:

Connection culture. This is where people feel supported, included, have a sense of ownership and surrender the me for we.

Controlling culture. People feel left out, lonely.

Indifferent culture. Found in extremely busy cultures so people don’t build supporting relationships; people don’t take time to build supporting relationships and it leads to a greater stress response since the body is preparing itself for a threat and, again, it compromises performance.

Additionally, the above cultures are based on three characteristics of attitude, language and behaviors. For instance, all high performance teams believe that attitude is a high priority, and they may communicate that through language. For example, one company I worked with had the motto of “sweat the details,” which connotes excellence through language. Another company had, “strive for perfection, settle for excellence.” Again, powerful language that stimulates attitude and subsequent behaviors.

Boss: Any final comments?

Stallard: If culture is everything then it’s nothing, so just focus on 3 things. Be intentional about these and they’ll produce the culture you want.

Leadership models are complicated; too many people in HR are trying to teach people leadership models but people have time poverty; they don’t have the bandwidth to soak up yet another leadership model of “excellence.” If you just focus on the vision, values and voices of the people, you’ll get 95 percent of things right.

Mike currently works with organizations who are merging to make leaders aware of their cultures and create a third culture of the two cultures being combined. Take his nine question culture quiz here to determine what culture you work in.

I'm a principal and senior advisor at N2 Growth, a completely integrated service firm where we serve senior leaders and their teams by way of executive search, leadership development, strategy, organizational design, culture transformation, and executive coaching. Specifical...